Promise Delivered: Macron Promised a Revolution, He Got One, Against Himself

It's rare for politicians to deliver on campaign promises. But French president Emmanuel Macron did. He promised a revolution, and got one. Unfortunately for Macron, the revolt is against his own policies.

The “Yellow Vests” protests now challenging President Emmanuel Macron have exposed a widening hole in the center of French politics—created by Macron himself.

It was Macron whose election in May 2017 all but obliterated the two establishment parties that had run France for 30 years. His own political movement had been launched less than a year before and his closest opponent for the presidency was from the far-right. By positioning himself as a reformer, Macron, 40, had hoped to establish a centrist consensus.

“The ‘gilets jaunes’ movement will probably peter out, but not the anger, which is likely to go on and take new forms maybe more dangerous for Macron,” said Jim Shields, a professor of French politics at Warwick University in the U.K. “It’s hard to see how he can complete controversial reforms like pensions and unemployment insurance without yet more blood on the pavement.”

A protest Saturday in Paris exploded into violence that left over 100 injured and more than 400 arrested, as well as burned cars and looted stores in the heart of the capital. Named after the colored vests motorists must keep in their cars for emergencies, the campaign began as a protest against higher gasoline taxes to reduce emissions. It’s now expanded to other demands and has the support of three-quarters of the French public, polls show.

“We are talking about cost of living and Macron is talking ecology,” said Joffre Denis, a 33-year old fireman who had come 125 miles from his home in the north of France to Paris, wearing a yellow vest at Saturday’s protest. “His solution for people who can’t afford food by the end of the month is to buy solar panels and electric cars.”

Revolt Against Taxes

The Yellow Vest movement started as a protest against a new diesel tax by Macron, but has now spread to other ideas and taxes in general. This is why:

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And what is France delivering for that tax rate? Obviously, not enough.

Radicalized Voters

Macron's "En Marche" (Forward, Onward, On the Move) party promised reform. Macron delivered higher taxes. At least 75% of the French voters have turned on him.

They will turn away from the center to the far right or far left.

Most Yellow Vests supporters will split their votes between Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s far-left France Unbowed, Boulouque said. Together, they received 41 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential voting in 2017.

Emergency Meeting Called

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While France was burning, Macron was at the useless G-20 summit. When he returned he held an Emergency Meeting with his advisers.

French President Emmanuel Macron has held an urgent security meeting following a day of riots by thousands of anti-government protesters.

Ministers said that while no options had been ruled out, imposing a state of emergency had not been discussed during the talks - despite earlier reports.

France's interior ministry says about 136,000 people took part in the protests nationwide.

The protest movement has no identifiable leadership and has gained momentum via social media, encompassing a whole range of participants from the anarchist far left to the nationalist far right, and plenty of moderates in between.

Nearly 300,000 people took part in the first country-wide demonstration, on 17 November.

France Burning

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Required Clothes

The "gilets jaunes" protesters, so-called because they have taken to the streets wearing the high-visibility yellow clothing that is required to be carried in every vehicle by French law.

Requiring people to own a symbol of protests, what a hoot.

Musical Tribute

I am certain readers would like a fitting musical tribute to these events. I can oblige.

​You say you want a revolutionWell, you knowWe all want to change the world

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Comments

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No. 1-22

Mike Mish Shedlock

Editor

Dec 4, 2018

"The French need their version of Thatcherism...it ain't gonna happen. They are essentially rebelling against their own culture. If you try austerity, the Left will riot. If you raid the piggybanks the middle-class will riot."

Brilliant analysis by cocao

Cocoa

Dec 4, 2018

The French need their version of Thatcherism...it ain't gonna happen. They are essentially rebelling against their own culture. If you try austerity, the Left will riot. If you raid the piggybanks the middle-class will riot. The French are boxed in-and the government really is always 2 days from total ruin. If Le Pen managed a victory, the socialists and Unions would burn the city down. There is no way out for France now. They need to changed their concept of civic duty. Trashing your beloved monuments? That is up there with the Taliban.

pgp

Dec 3, 2018

Disadvantaged people need more opportunities. If businesses and factories shutdown, those opportunities decline. Add in refugees and an imported culture of 7 child families, two generations away from any hope of a professional education and you get the classic French ghetto. Hooray for humanitarianism, where love and disciplined compassion must eventually trump starvation and poverty, particularly amongst the least educated.

Mike Mish Shedlock

Editor

Dec 3, 2018

"The French are violently opposed to socialism if they have to pay for it."

that's the comment of the day from SuperDuper

JL1

Dec 3, 2018

Macron is completely out of touch and in a la-la-la-land.

It is totally insane for Macron to put huge hikes on diesel, gas and energy taxes to "save the planet" and "fight global warming" while the totally inept and incompetently negotiated Paris agreement on Climate Change gives China freedom to raise their CO2 emissions as high as they want until 2030 and since China's "cut" in CO2 is to keep CO2 emissions at the 2030 level from then on that means the Paris agreement actually INCENTIVIZES China to massively increase their CO2 emissions by 2030.

And this while China already NOW causes more CO2 emissions than USA and EU COMBINED!

The fact that European media is cheering the Paris agreement as some victory is a failure in every European media company.

Has Macron even READ the Paris agreement himself to see how stupid it is?

If the IPCC projections and assumptions and forecasts about climate change are correct then the Paris agreement is NOT saving the Earth instead the Paris agreement could be more fittingly called a Global suicide pact.

EU has thousands of bureaucrats taking TAX FREE salaries working on Climate Change to make sure living costs as much as possible and European factories are uncompetitive so they are closed as quickly as possible and Macron and other European politicians live in some fever dream how they can cut CO2 massively and by some magic people will not live in poverty due the ideas these bureaucrats come up with with most being tax-tax-tax.

The need to raise taxes in EU is also the by-product of well paying factory jobs moving to China which boosts the Chinese CO2 emissions further and EU bureaucrats they can plug the hole in the tax base by increasing diesel, gas and energy taxes on population that is losing well paying jobs.
Add to that the massive numbers of permanently unemployed migrants France has brought from France's former African colonies and it means taxes need to be hiked quickly to pay welfare so migrant ghettos surrounding every large French city do not go up in flames.

Well now regular French people had enough.

Macron has never worked a day in a real job, he is the elitist of elite and studied in elite schools and got jobs because he was so "brilliant"and had everything on a golden plate in life.